


Almost Like They're Infinite

by EdgarAllenPoet



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, But Look What Happened, Canon Compliant, Gen, How Do I Tag, Mentions of Other Voltron Paladins, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, This wasn't supposed to be angst, ketih pov, slight AU in episode 13
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-24
Updated: 2017-05-24
Packaged: 2018-11-04 08:00:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10986786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EdgarAllenPoet/pseuds/EdgarAllenPoet
Summary: "But as a galactic f-you, from the seemingly endless void of spite, the universe seemed to stretch on forever."





	Almost Like They're Infinite

**Author's Note:**

> I thought, "Hey, this fic where they're lost in space for a while offers a lot of room for shenanigans." 
> 
> Then I thought, "Hey, before we write about those shenanigans, let's make something describing what happened!" 
> 
> Then I thought about elementary school, and infinity, and how a kid like Keith would be furious over a concept like that. 
> 
> Then I wrote this, and fuck guys, I'm sorry.

Infinity was a concept that Keith could never wrap his mind around.  He remembered when they introduced it in elementary school.  They said, “infinity is something that goes on forever.  It never ends.”  Kids would use it to win silly arguments.  

 

_ “Yeah, well that times ten!”  _

_ “That times a hundred!”  _

_ “That times ten thousand!”  _

_ “That times infinity!”  _

 

He remembered when they first told him about it in school, and he remembered being angry.  There was no force greater than the unbridled rage of an eight year old.  Infinity is something that never ends, but everything ends.  He remembered, being very small, and going out on trips to the desert with his father.  The land would stretch on and on, but the farther they drove, the more land there was.  You’d have land for what seemed like forever, and then something else.  A town, or a mountain, or a change in the dirt.

 

He heard other kids parents, on TV or at school, say things like “I love you forever.”  But forever doesn’t exist, and infinity doesn’t make sense.  Sometimes, even staring out into the vastness of space, which they say to be infinite, Keith is still angry.  Maybe it doesn’t go on forever.  Maybe if you keep flying you just find more space, and it feels like forever, and then there’s something else.

 

What happened during the fight with Zarkon stood as an instance of the universe trying to prove him wrong.  If the universe was forever vast and infinite, it was also a source of infinite spite.  Keith hoped that if they kept on flying, past an unmeasurable distance of space, the something else that they found would be a giant face, just so Keith could kick it. 

 

Haggar was too strong for them, in the end.  The black magic she used disobeyed any law of physics they’d studied at the Garrison, and after getting hit with a sizzling dose of  _ that _ for the third time in only a few months, Voltron had shut down.  

 

Maybe they could have brought him back.  Maybe they could have been strong enough.  But the castle was damaged and only getting weaker, Zarkon didn’t look any worse for wear, and before they could summon the willpower or quintessance or whatever-the-fuck it was they needed to get going again, the castle was sucking them back in and Allura was warping them far, far away.

 

It wasn’t like Allura to run. 

 

Not like that.  Not away from a fight. 

 

Keith couldn’t say he blamed her. 

 

But as a galactic f-you, from the seemingly endless void of spite, the universe seemed to stretch on forever.  Allura held the wormhole longer than she usually did; longer than what might have been safe, and by the time they’d emerged from the other side with jelly legs and throbbing headaches, the void of space didn’t exactly look the same. 

 

Sometime while they were stuck in the wormhole -which was an experience they all knew by now came with the unsettling feeling of having your stomach stapled to your spine- they’d limped out of their lions and meandered towards the command deck.  They emerged, holding their heads and squinting out the massive windows.  They settled into their seats, disappointment sitting heavy on everyone’s shoulders, and watched the streaking colors of the wormhole go by and by.

 

Seemingly forever. 

 

Almost like they were infinite. 

 

When they popped out the other side, Allura releasing them from the jump with a stuttered gasp and swaying balance, none of them recognized their surroundings.  That wasn’t anything new.  Most of the universe that they got to explore as paladins was beyond the sight of Earth.  They were going to galaxies never even thought of at the Garrison.  

 

This time, however, was different.  The “sky” though that wasn’t quite what it was, but Keith couldn’t come up with a better word for it, wasn’t black or blue or purple, or even red. 

 

It was green.  Not forest green or emerald green, but watery, yellowish, puke tinted green.  It was the color Hunk turned sometimes when his stomach got upset, which happened less and less with each battle they faced, but still wasn’t an unheard of thing.  It was green and milky and it almost looked… shallow. 

 

That last bit really helped with Keith’s infinity argument.  Nothing can be both shallow and infinite.  While the other paladins stared out the window ahead of them in mouth gaping awe, Keith directed his attention to Allura and Coran, hoping to pick up some sort of clue as to where they were or what the situation was.  Their faces offered no such advice.  In fact, in a gut wrenching realization, Keith noticed that they looked scared. 

 

Leave it to Hunk to point out the elephant in the room.  He asked, “Where are we?” and the silence that followed stabbed right through Keith’s gut. 

 

“I…” Allura trailed off, not even getting a word out.  She called up a map while Coran squinted out the window.  The map rose up in a blue hologram.  She requested their current coordinates, and the hologram flashed an angry red.  She tried again.  Red.  Again.  Red. 

 

“Coran?” she asked. “Where… where are we?” 

 

Coran was still squinting out the window, as if staring disapprovingly at the far off planets for long enough would weaken their resolve and get them to confess.  It didn’t work on guilty paladins (Coran would  _ never _ figure out where Pidge hid his slippers.  He was still blaming it on the  _ mice _ (she hid them in the vents)), and it didn’t work on planets.  

 

“I don’t know, Princess,” he answered.  “I’ve… I’ve never seen this solar system before.” 

 

There would be much to talk about, in the upcoming spanse of time, which may have only been weeks but felt like forever.  They didn’t know where they were.  They weren’t sure how they’d gotten there, and they definitely had no idea on how to get back.  The coordinates were faulty, the maps were useless, and for some reason or another, Allura couldn’t call up a wormhole.

 

It took them hours (..vargas…?) to piece that all together into a giant quilt of a mystery, and it took them almost that long to realize the Blade of Marmora were still on the ship with them.  It took them quite a bit of time to find Slav hyperventilating in a closet, mumbling about ‘astral zone’ and ‘ghosted’ and ‘time jump’ and ‘gonegonegone,’ and it took longer than it should have for them to pry Keith away from him.  To hold Keith back while he screamed and fought and demanded answers, yelling until his voice was hoarse because  _ “You know something, God damn it.  You know!  What did the do to him!? Where is he!?” _

 

It didn’t take them very long at all, though, to realize what was missing.  Only several minutes out of the wormhole, while Allura and Coran were still puzzling over what exactly had gone wrong and where they’d ended up, Lance’s voice popped up dripping with barely held-back concern.  

 

“Hey guys…” he’d said, voice tilting upwards in a question.  “Where’s Shiro?” 

 

It was as if time froze for a second, holding everyone very, very still, and then shattered all at once.  Keith was running, sprinting, practically scrambling to the hanger and into the cockpit of the black lion, not caring if anyone was following him but knowing the others were on his tails.

 

He’d ran, panicked, with all the energy he could muster.  Then they’d gotten there, and Shiro was gone, and Keith still hadn’t caught his breath. 

 

 

…

 

Infinity was a concept Keith could never wrap his mind around, not when things kept changing and morphing and nothing stayed constant.  His childhood had been a game of hot potato between houses that didn’t want him and adults talking of “forever homes.”  Enlisting at the Garrison at seventeen had been his first taste of structure.  The schedules, the regime, the authority he fought with every ounce of stubborn bullheadedness his childhood had beat into him.  It had seemed stable, constant, the same as Shiro had. 

 

But then Shiro was gone, and then lost, and school was ruined and over.  Keith found himself once again drifting aimlessly.  School, desert, lion,  _ space _ .  

 

Just when Voltron felt familiar and the castle started to feel like a home, it was all ripped out from under his feet.  At least  _ that _ was a constant.  Infinite pool of  _ spite _ . 

 

Keith had hated the concept of infinity from the moment it was introduced, but there was something he hated even more.  Furious, flailing, and on the verge of flunking out, and Shiro pulled him aside and said “ _ Patience yields focus _ .” 

 

Patience yields focus. 

 

Patience yields panic attacks. 

 

Patience yields too much time lost when they should be out searching for him. 

 

Keith had taken the words to heart, resentful or not, because Shiro had said them.  But now Shiro was gone, and while Keith still had the words, the longer he waited the harder it was to breathe.

**Author's Note:**

> Comment if you liked it ??? Come talk to me on tumblr. punks-n-rec.
> 
> More to come.


End file.
